Belgium: Raising Awareness about Falun Gong and the Persecution

By a Belgian practitioner

2008-11-01

From the 24th till the 27th of October, the ninth staging of the Arts & Crafts Fair took place in the 'Grenslandhallen' in the city of Hasselt. Practitioners of Falun Gong have been to this fair several years in a row.

The Falun Gong booth was filled with information about the practice. Practitioners demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises and showed festival-goers how to fold paper lotus flowers. Others distributed information about the persecution in China, or promoted the Divine Performing Arts show in Antwerp. Practitioners distributed flyers and regularly demonstrated the exercises at the booth, as well as twice on the stage in the centre of the fair.

The paper lotus flowers attracted many people and at most times there even was not enough places to sit for everyone who wished to make a flower. Some people even waited at the booth for a period of time, because they really wanted to make a flower. For moments it was impossible to explain the meaning behind the Petals of Peace project to everyone, so practitioners handed out nicely displayed written information to read and later when possible, practitioners would continue further with the explanations to which many people were thankful to know.

An elderly couple carrying a grandchild approached the booth and asked for a lotus flower for the child and another one for another coming grandchild, “Coming from Falun Gong the flowers will bring blessings to our grandchildren”, they said. They have attended the Gala Spectacular show last February and said that they felt very much at peace after watching such a wonderful performance.

To promote the Divine Performing Arts show at the booth, practitioners prepared a separate display area where they showed the promotion video and distributed flyers. Several people told practitioners that they watched the show this year and all of them really liked the show a lot. Most of those people who watched the show this year, said that they would surely watch it again next year. One woman told a practitioner that she received the ticket for the Divine Performing Arts from her two daughters for her birthday and that she will go back this year for sure. She said this was a very nice and beautiful birthday present. When she talked about the show, her eyes were shining.

This year, the fair did not get as many visitors as other years, but still many people visited our stand and had very positive reactions. A woman told a practitioner that the Falun Gong booth attracted her very much and that she could really feel good energy. Afterwards, another person told a practitioner that she could also feel a strong energy emanating from the booth.

Some visitors got interest in watching the pictures and paintings hanging at the booth. For that they walked inside and sometimes a practitioner was available to give the necessary explanations.

A man asked practitioners if we they did many such Falun Gong activities. He was also interested in spiritual things. He makes calendars with activities, and he asked for contact information from practitioners, so that he could also put Falun Gong activities in this calendar. Many people will view this calendar.

When an older man heard about the principles ‘Truthfulness Compassion Tolerance’, he talked with a practitioner for more than half an hour. The practitioner told him about Falun Gong and gave more explicit information about these universal principles. After listening for a while to the practitioner, he said he would really like to read Zhuan Falun [the main text of Falun Dafa], and immediately bought the book Zhuan Falun without hesitation.

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